Volume 54: Carpathian Ruthenia part 1

The first part of the monograph concerns three regions: Huculszczyzna [the region of the highlanders called Huculowie], Bukovina and Ruś Węgierska [Hungarian Ruthenia]. In the original plan of Kolberg's, the monograph of highlanders inhabiting the East Carpathians (of Huculszczyzna) was to be a part of Pokuttia, therefore, to some extent, the monograph on the region of Carpathian Ruthenia has the form of a supplement. The first part contains four chapters: The Country, The People, Customs and Rites which bring ample information about a specific culture of these regions (about herding in the mountains, cutting and floating timber, handicraft and brigandage). Kolberg investigated the region of highlanders inhabiting the East Carpathians in the years 1867-1880, collecting remarkably plentiful data on the material culture of the region during the preparations to the ethnographic exhibition in Kołomyja, organized in 1880. He frequently conducted his research in the village of Żabie, the biggest settlement of the highlanders located in the center of the region. He supplemented his own materials with the literature, beginning with the works of B. Hacquet from 1794, through Polish and Ukrainian publications of Ł. Gołębiowski, W. Pol, J. D. Wahilewicz, S. Witwicki, and others, and finishing in his contemporaries from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, such as L. Wajgl.